‘London preferably.’
‘Try the Morning Advertiser,’ Jeff advised. ‘They’re looking for reporters. Might take you on straightaway if that’s what you want, particularly as you’re a Pembroke man. It’s as good a place as any and you can always move on if it don’t suit. What’s brought this about?’
‘I sounded my grandmother.’
‘Ah! And?’
‘I think it’s on.’
‘She said “yes”.’
‘Well, she didn’t exactly say “yes”,’ Will admitted, ‘but then again she didn’t exactly say “no” either.’
‘And what about your father?’
‘I shall speak to him later.’
‘Make a name for yourself first, eh?’
‘Something of that.’
‘Very wise,’ Jeff said, holding up his glass for more Hollands. ‘Try a royal story for a start. They always sell. The old king’s a-dying, so they say.’
‘Is he?’ Will said, refilling his own glass. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. And what’s the rest of the gossip?’
Frederick Brougham, that other, more reliable gossip, was back in London. He had been Nan Easter’s lover for more than twenty years, and although she saw rather less of him these days now that he had an estate in Westmoreland to care for, she was always glad of his company and warmed by his affection, for he was a gentle lover and a witty man, urbane and tolerant and wise in the ways of the world. Even now, after all these years, every homecoming was an event, and the time they spent together in her town house in Bedford Square or her country house in Bury or out in the wilds of his estate in Penrith were occasions to be cherished and savoured. As they drove to Holland House that Saturday evening, they were both bubbling with the pleasure of their reunion, and Frederick was primed with the latest unofficial news.
‘The King is ill again,’ he told her. ‘Mallory heard it of the Queen’s physician. A weakness of the lungs with high fever, so ‘tis said.’
‘There was no mention of it in The Times,’ she said, as the carriage jolted over the uneven cobbles.
‘Look for it tomorrow,’ he said, putting out an arm to steady her.
‘How so? Is it like to prove fatal?’ If he died they would have a queen on the throne of England, and a young one at that, for the Princess Victoria was only seventeen. That would improve trade and no mistake.
‘The physicians have taken up residence.’
‘Then he’s in a poor way, and Princess Victoria still under age. Who would be Regent, do ‘ee think?’
‘You would, I daresay,’ he teased, ‘if they gave you half a chance.’
‘And make a better job of it than the Duchess of Kent,’ she said, grinning at him.
‘Old though you are,’ he smiled at her, still teasing.
‘You may admit to advanced years if you wish, Frederick Brougham,’ she teased him back, ‘but I don’t. I’ve a deal too much spirit to sit in the chimney corner and wait to grow grey.’
‘We grow grey together, my dear,’ he said affectionately, ‘and yet I love you more dearly than ever. I fear this must betoken a fundamental laziness in my disposition.’
‘Long may it continue,’ she said, kissing him, as the carriage wheeled into the avenue of limes that led to Holland House.
The London season progressed, and no news concerning the King’s health appeared in the papers, but the rumours continued to circulate, and alarm and speculation increased together, so that the sales of newsprint were marginally improved. And in May, when the Princess Victoria celebrated her eighteenth birthday and so came officially of age and able to assume the throne in the event of her uncle’s death, sales and speculation increased even further.
Mrs Flowerdew read the reports of the birthday celebrations to her pupils during their drawing afternoons.
‘It was all done in great style, my dears,’ she said, ‘as you would expect when you consider that this young woman is heir to the throne of England. What a blessing it will be when this country is governed by a woman. Think of that. Oh, we shall see some changes then, I can tell you. Women will come into their own then.’ And she read happily from The Times.
‘“At 6 p.m. the Union Jack was hoisted on the Old Church at Kensington, and on the green opposite to the church a large white silk flag was unfurled with Victoria inscribed upon it in letters of ethereal blue.” How perfectly charming. “At night a ball, seldom equalled in magnificence, was given in her honour in St James’ Palace. The princess herself opened with the quadrille in which she was led by Lord Fitzalan, the eldest son of the Earl of Surrey, who is grandson to the Duke of Norfolk.” Oh, entirely fitting, my dears. He would be an excellent match. “H.R.H. later danced with Prince Nicholas Ester-hazy.” But how splendid. The Esterhazy family own half of Europe, my dears. “There was great general regret at the absence of Their Majesties.” Ah, you see. There is something amiss. There can be no doubt of it now. The poor man must be ill. He would never have slighted his little niece if that were not the case. We will say a special prayer for him tomorrow morning. Remind me, Helen.’
But although special prayers were said at the seminary for the next seven days the King took no benefit from them.
On 9 June his two physicians put out a statement from Windsor Castle, which The Times printed in full, admitting that the King was suffering from an infection of the chest, which had confined his majesty to his apartment, and produced considerable weakness. From then on they issued a bulletin every day.
Mrs Flowerdew read every single one to her assembled school, either first thing in the morning or during their drawing afternoons, which she increased to three a week in view of the gravity of the situation, and to the great delight of her pupils.
‘“Crowds are gathered before the palace gates,”’ she read. ‘“The archbishops of York and Canterbury have said special prayers for him.” Poor man!’
‘“19 June. The King is in a very weak and feeble state and has received the sacrament from the hands of the archbishop of Canterbury, with attention and great apparent comfort.” Then the end is coming!’
And the next day, dressed in really rather splendid half mourning of lavender and white, she called the school to assembly to read the final solemn words. ‘“It has pleased God Almighty to release from his sufferings our most gracious sovereign King William the Fourth. His majesty expired this morning at twelve minutes past two o’clock, at his castle of Windsor, in the seventy-second year of his age, and the seventh year of his reign.” So now we have a queen. Miss Butts will provide each of you with a black ribbon to wear upon your straw bonnet for the next two weeks as a token of respect. You will dismiss quietly, I know.’
But Caroline never got around to wearing her particular token of respect. That afternoon a letter arrived from Nan, telling her that she was to travel to London on the first coach out of Bury the next morning. ‘The new Queen is to be proclaimed in St James’ Palace in two days time,’ she wrote, ‘and that’s a sight we shouldn’t miss when reigning queens are such a rarity. Frederick has arranged seats for us all in the palace grounds. Be sure that Bessie travels with you. No escapades, mind. I will send Benson to meet you with the carriage and bring you straight to Bedford Square. Your brother will join us by dinner time, when I have a surprise for you both. Your loving Nan.’
Caroline needed no second bidding. She threw her straw bonnet into the cupboard, black ribbons and all, the minute she’d read the letter, and next morning she dressed herself in her prettiest gown and her new silk bonnet and her new blue mantle, and she and Bessie caught the coach with time to spare.
‘Pussy cat pussy cat, where ‘ave you been? Off to London to see the Queen,’ Bessie said happily as she settled into the corner seat. ‘What a lark!’
‘And a surprise too,’ Caroline said. ‘What can it be, Bessie?’
‘Could be anything knowing your Nan,’ Bessie said. ‘You’ll know soon enough.’
But it was an intriguing puzzle to entertain them during th
e journey. And such an easy journey this time, with the horses in fine fettle and the roads just damp enough to lay the dust but not so wet as to make mud. ‘One benefit of a showery spring,’ as Bessie pointed out. So they made good time, and arrived in Bedford Square well before dinner.
Nan didn’t say what the surprise was and when Will arrived he didn’t know either. And when their father joined them he didn’t mention it at all.
But then just before eight o’clock, when Caroline was beginning to wonder if they were ever going in to dinner, another carriage drew up outside the door, and Nan got up and announced her intention of going downstairs herself to attend to it.
‘I shan’t be long,’ she said, grinning at them mischievously.
True to her word she was back within seconds. And following her into the room she brought three extraordinary strangers, an odd looking woman, an even odder looking man and a girl about the same age as Caroline.
All three of them were the most peculiar colour, a sort of brownish yellow, like faded curtains, and they wore the oddest clothes, most of them made of an off-white crinkled material that looked more like paper than cotton. The man had a jacket it was true but it was very old fashioned, being long, straight, unfitted and a very dull brown, like a servant’s. His breeches were so crumpled he looked as though he’d slept in them and his cravat was patterned and very badly folded, falling lop-sidedly under a craggy chin, a broken nose and a very seamy forehead. Nevertheless, despite his unprepossessing appearance, or perhaps because of it, he strutted into the room like a fighting cock, jerking his head from side to side as though he were sizing up his enemies. And it was such a misshaped skull, revealed by hair cut so short that it was little more than stubble, and the oddest coloured stubble at that, part grey, part white and part ginger. Caroline disliked him at once.
The woman was very thin and she didn’t seem to have very much hair either, for she wore a huge mob cap pulled low over her forehead. It was made of the same off-white material as her gown, which was high-waisted, straight-skirted, much turned and very old-fashioned. And her gloves were so ancient they were grey. She glided into the room after her husband, darting anxious glances at the company and making a nervous whinnying noise, like a horse. Caroline didn’t think much of her either.
But the girl was different. She too was very thin and dressed in the same kind of old fashioned gown made in the same grubby looking material, but she couldn’t help that, poor thing, and at least she’d made an effort. She had a new blue ribbon tied about her waist and another in her hair, which was thick and curly and the colour of copper coins, and although she was probably as nervous as her mother, her yellow face was calm and her brown eyes serene as still water. I could like her, Caroline thought, trying to catch her eye.
‘Come and meet my family,’ Nan said to the gentleman. ‘This is my son John and his son Will, and this gentleman, John my dear, is Mr Simon Callbeck, who is my nephew by marriage and your cousin. He’s been in India for thirty-five years and is back in London for the season. En’t that the most amazing thing? And this is Mrs Callbeck and their daughter Euphemia. And this is my granddaughter Caroline.’
It was a very difficult dinner party and not at all the sort of surprise that Caroline had hoped for. Mr and Mrs Callbeck were awful. Although they dressed like servants they talked about money and possessions all the time, and every possession they mentioned had to be bigger and better than anyone else’s. Their house in Calcutta was ‘a maharajah’s summer retreat, priceless,’ the quantity of jute they had sold over the years was ‘the biggest in the country,’ and they had a friend who had given his wife a ruby ‘as big as a hen’s egg, worth a king’s ransom.’
‘You will miss the life,’ Will observed drily.
‘No, no,’ Mr Callbeck said. ‘We’re goin’ straight back just as soon as the boys are settled. Ain’t we, Agnes?’
Mrs Callbeck agreed that yes, they were, they were indeed. But John was interested to hear that there were boys in the family too.
‘Oh yes,’ Mr Callbeck said. ‘Two fine boys, highly intelligent. Got them in to public school as easy as winkin’. Give ‘em an education, that’s what we say, don’t we, Agnes?’
‘Yes, yes, indeed.’
‘We’re sendin’ Pheemy to boardin’ school, in a week or two,’ Mr Callbeck said. ‘We’ve rented a new house in St John’s Wood, you know, just for the season, and we can’t have nippers under our feet all the time, eh? Makin’ a row and dirtyin’ the place and all that sort of thing.’
Then they are rich after all, Will thought. St John’s Wood was a prestigious address. Not quite up to the splendid style of Bedford Square, but certainly wealthy. And yet their clothes don’t fit them. How weird. But perhaps Indian tailors aren’t very good.
Caroline had been watching Euphemia all through this stupid conversation, annoyed by how totally the poor girl was being ignored. Neither of her parents bothered to include her in the conversation. They didn’t even look at her. It was as if she wasn’t there. And the poor girl went on dutifully eating her meal and keeping her eyes down and saying nothing.
So as soon as the cloth was removed and the meal completed and Nan had given the signal that the ladies were to withdraw, she rushed from her chair and took her new cousin by the hand. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We will sit behind the piano. We can talk there. I know just the place.’
Euphemia allowed herself to be led but her yellow face looked anxious. ‘Won’t she mind?’ she asked in a whisper. She pronounced the words rather carefully, with a slight hesitation before each one, as though she were speaking a foreign language.
‘Who?’
‘Your grandmother.’
‘No, course not. Why should she mind? She likes her guests to enjoy themselves.’
‘She is a very nice lady.’
‘Yes, she is. Come on.’
So they hid themselves away behind the piano while Nan entertained her whinnying guest. And Caroline discovered something that was even more extraordinary than the peculiar cut of the Callbeck attire. Until that afternoon Euphemia had never dined at the same table as her parents.
‘Never?’ Caroline said, her grey eyes wide with amazement.
‘No,’ Euphemia said calmly. ‘It is not done. Children are a nuisance. I stayed with my ayah most of the time.’ Seeing Caroline’s eyes widen further, Euphemia explained quickly, ‘I liked that. She was very kind to me. When I had a pain she used to stroke it away.’ And for the first time since her introduction her madonna face began to show emotion, yearning and sad, her brown eyes unfocussed, seeing that dear lost face such a long long way away. Oh ayah, dear ayah, how am I to live in this strange cold land without you? ‘She was very kind.’
Her beautiful, brooding sadness triggered Caroline’s sympathy into instant activity. ‘Tomorrow morning we are all going to see the new Queen proclaimed,’ she said. ‘At St James’ Palace, you know. Nan has seats for us. Shall you be there?’
The brown eyes misted back to the present. ‘I don’t think so,’ Euphemia said. ‘What a wonderful thing. You are lucky to be seeing such a thing.’
‘Why don’t you come with us?’ Caroline offered at once.
‘Could I?’
‘I don’t see why not. You could share my seat. You’re not very big. I will arrange it.’ The three men had finished their brandy and were walking into the drawing room, so there was a pause in the conversation. It was just the right moment. She jumped to her feet and was off at once to ask Nan.
‘If her parents are agreeable,’ Nan said, looking the question straight at them. She was delighted by the speed with which her impetuous granddaughter had taken Euphemia under her protection, for it was just what she had hoped for. With her connivance Mr Callbeck had already made arrangements for Euphemia’s board and education, and if everything went according to plan she and Caroline would soon be school friends. But nothing was to be explained yet.
To Caroline’s scorn and delight, the Callbecks ha
rdly gave the matter any thought at all. They seemed pleased to be rid of their daughter. ‘There are so many things that need our attention,’ Mrs Callbeck said, ‘and all of them so very much easier without a child perpetually about our ankles. It is very kind of you, Mrs Easter.’
Early the next morning the Easter chaise took Caroline and Euphemia chattering down the Mall towards St James’ Palace.
It was a lovely summer’s day, pearly with sunshine. The Mall was already thronged with excited crowds and the park of St James was a green bower, the waters of the lake shimmering sky-blue and leaf-green, and the massed trees whispering most lusciously in the morning air. Six field guns were drawn up on the grass ready for the salute and manned by a troup of the Royal Household Artillery, resplendent in busbies and gold-frogged uniforms. It was very exciting.
The palace grounds were full of carriages arriving, wheeling about and departing, and as the Easter party took their places facing the palace, their friends walked across to greet them and pass the time of day. Euphemia had never seen so many fine clothes, all so well cut and so beautifully fitted and in such clearly printed colours. Caroline was dressed in the most delectable spotted muslin, embroidered with pink rosebuds and little blue flowers that she said were called forget-me-nots, which seemed a quite charming name, and her bonnet was trimmed with magnificent blue ribbons that exactly matched the blue trim on her parasol.
‘Pretty, ain’t it?’ she said to Euphemia, noticing her new friend’s admiration, and twirling the little sunshade for her inspection.
‘The fashion here is very fine,’ Euphemia said. ‘Your Nan looks grand enough to be the Queen.’
But at that moment the guns in the park began to fire the salute and a window opened in the middle of the first floor of the palace and there was the new Queen herself. Everybody stopped talking at once and looked upwards, straining their necks so as not to miss a thing.
‘But she’s tiny!’ Caroline whispered to Euphemia. ‘She’s not much bigger than you and me!’ And their new queen certainly looked very small, standing between the bulky figures of Lord Lansdowne and Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, both in full state dress with blue ribbands. Oh, very small and very pale. She was dressed in black except for a white tippet about her neck and white cuffs at her wrists and a border of white lace under her plain black bonnet. But she wore no veil and from where they sat they could see her little sad face quite clearly and the fair hair parted simply over her forehead. Oh, she was a dear little queen.
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